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How to Love Your Teen (Without Losing Your Mind)

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Isaiah 26:3

Age of Opportunity: A Biblical Guide to Parenting Teens -Paul Tripp uncovers the heart issues that affect parents and their teenage children during the often-chaotic adolescent years. With wit, wisdom, humility, and compassion, he shows parents how to seize the countless opportunities to deepen communication and learn and grow with their teens.

Yes, Your Teen is Crazy: Loving Your Teen Without Losing Your Mind by Michael J Bradley – Reminding parents that you can’t relate to a crazy teen the same way you relate to a rational adult, Bradley tells readers how to navigate the adolescent minefield.

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Got Teens? P is for Perseverance – If you would have told me twenty years ago that one of my bubbly, bright-eyed, adorable little babies would ever be disrespectful or rude to me I would have said, “not a chance.” After all, my stellar parenting skills and unconditional love would prevent it. Right?

In Pursuit of Your Teen – As parents, we need to be keeping our finger on the pulse on our children’s relationships with other people and their relationship with the Lord. We can’t do that if we’re not talking to them.

How busy is too busy?

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Crazy Busy: A Mercifully Short Book about a (Really) Big Problem by Kevin DeYoung – I’M TOO BUSY!” We’ve all heard it. We’ve all said it. All too often, busyness gets the best of us.  Just one look at our jam-packed schedules tells us how hard it can be to strike a well-reasoned balance between doing nothing and doing it all.  That’s why award-winning author and pastor Kevin DeYoung addresses the busyness problem head on in his newest book, Crazy Busy — and not with the typical arsenal of time management tips, but rather with the biblical tools we need to get to the source of the issue and pull the problem out by the roots.  Highly practical and super short, Crazy Busy will help you put an end to “busyness as usual.”

Heidi St John Homeschooling Guide to Daylight

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Busy Seasons and Weary Souls – God doesn’t clearly tell us in his Word what is too much or too little when it comes to busyness. That’s something we each have to walk out with him. What He does tell us though, is that He wants us to be about HIS business…His agenda. In other words, to be led by the Holy Spirit. Being too busy is only okay if it’s what He wants us to do.

Balance for Busy Moms – “Most of the time, finding balance means letting go what those things that are causing the most stress. Of course, we can’t always do that! Sometimes, my kids are causing me the most stress! Here’s the thing. If my kids are causing me stress, I can almost always trace it back to something in my life that’s out of whack…”

Should Christians Be In Politics?

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Introducing Our Guest

Connie Albers has spent much of her adult life as a homeschool mom and mom-preneur with an outreach and ministry to homeschool parents through her leadership and as a speaker. She is a respected leader and trusted homeschool mom who understands the challenges of balancing the demands of life. Connie is a wife and mother of five homeschool graduates. Her children continued their studies at the University of Central Florida on scholarship. Four have graduated and one is a senior. She is a speaker and writer, a spokesperson, and owns ConnieAlbers.com. Her latest venture is fulfilling her desire to equip women in their calling through her Equipped To Be ministry and with her site. The Albers family lives in Winter Garden, Florida.

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Firmly Planted Family™ is dedicated to encouraging and building strong, Christ-centered families who are “firmly planted” in the rich soil of God’s Word.  FPF publishes the Firmly Planted™ Bible studies for families, organizes retreats for moms and couples, and hosts Strong Roots™ conferences across the United States.

Firmly Planted Bible Study for All Ages – We all agree that teaching our children the life-changing truths of the Bible is one of our most important jobs as parents. But where do we begin? How do we consistently explore God’s Word in a way that helps our children understand and apply the core truths of biblical teaching in their own lives? The Firmly Planted Family Series is divided into ten-week studies and is your key to making sense of the Bible—even if you’re learning right along with your children. Each lesson provides a core idea, a simple narrative, memory verses and discussion questions for children of all ages. And the companion student workbook is filled with age-appropriate, full-color, reproducible activities for children of any age!

Additional Resources

Home School Legal Defense Association National Advocacy Page -Home School Legal Defense Association is a nonprofit advocacy organization established to defend and advance the constitutional right of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children and to protect family freedoms. We provide homeschooling-related legal advice and representation to our 84,000+ member families, promote homeschool-friendly legislation at the state and federal levels, and offer information and resources to encourage and support all homeschoolers.  Their website offers ways to get involved.

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Finding – and KEEPing – Your Mojo When Your Overwhelmed

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2 Timothy 2:15

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The Busy Homeschool Moms Guide to Daylight by Heidi St. John – Do you need encouragement and fresh ideas for your  day? Help is on the way! Tick Tock, Tick Tock… Can you hear it? Are you “burning daylight?” If you have ever experienced a series of days, weeks or even months when you felt like you just could NOT get on top of all you had to do, you are not alone. Juggling homemaking can be challenging-or so we’ve heard! Whether you’re struggling with managing your day, or simply looking for encouragement and fresh ideas for tackling your list of things to do, you will enjoy hearing from the heart of busy homeschool mom of seven, wife and author, Heidi St. John. You’ll laugh out loud, learn some of Heidi’s favorite tips on everything from home organization to meal preparation, and discover how you can manage your home in freedom and joy. Are you ready to be encouraged? Then join Heidi in discovering that real moms sometimes serve cereal for dinner-and live to write about it!

Heidi St John Homeschooling Guide to Daylight

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Busy Seasons and Weary Souls – God doesn’t clearly tell us in his Word what is too much or too little when it comes to busyness. That’s something we each have to walk out with him. What He does tell us though, is that He wants us to be about HIS business…His agenda. In other words, to be led by the Holy Spirit. Being too busy is only okay if it’s what He wants us to do.

Balance for Busy Moms – So what does this have to do with balance?  First, we need to work to please God, not others.  Second, and it may not seem obvious at first, but if you read from verse 17  back down to that parallel verse, verse 23, you will see something that stood out to me:  I noticed that all of the verses in between 17 and 23 talk about the importance of relationships. Those verses are all about healthy family relationships: wives and husbands are supposed to be in loving relationships with each other; we read that fathers are not to exasperate their children.  God’s Word is telling us that good works situations and healthy family situations go hand in hand.  This takes prioritizing and balancing.  Sometimes, good things rob us of the best things.

Finding Your Mojo When You’re Overwhelmed

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Resources

The Busy Homeschool Moms Guide to Daylight by Heidi St. John – Do you need encouragement and fresh ideas for your  day? Help is on the way! Tick Tock, Tick Tock… Can you hear it? Are you “burning daylight?” If you have ever experienced a series of days, weeks or even months when you felt like you just could NOT get on top of all you had to do, you are not alone. Juggling homemaking can be challenging-or so we’ve heard! Whether you’re struggling with managing your day, or simply looking for encouragement and fresh ideas for tackling your list of things to do, you will enjoy hearing from the heart of busy homeschool mom of seven, wife and author, Heidi St. John. You’ll laugh out loud, learn some of Heidi’s favorite tips on everything from home organization to meal preparation, and discover how you can manage your home in freedom and joy. Are you ready to be encouraged? Then join Heidi in discovering that real moms sometimes serve cereal for dinner-and live to write about it!

Heidi St John Homeschooling Guide to Daylight

More from The Busy Mom

Busy Seasons and Weary Souls – God doesn’t clearly tell us in his Word what is too much or too little when it comes to busyness. That’s something we each have to walk out with him. What He does tell us though, is that He wants us to be about HIS business…His agenda. In other words, to be led by the Holy Spirit. Being too busy is only okay if it’s what He wants us to do.

Balance for Busy Moms – So what does this have to do with balance?  First, we need to work to please God, not others.  Second, and it may not seem obvious at first, but if you read from verse 17  back down to that parallel verse, verse 23, you will see something that stood out to me:  I noticed that all of the verses in between 17 and 23 talk about the importance of relationships. Those verses are all about healthy family relationships: wives and husbands are supposed to be in loving relationships with each other; we read that fathers are not to exasperate their children.  God’s Word is telling us that good works situations and healthy family situations go hand in hand.  This takes prioritizing and balancing.  Sometimes, good things rob us of the best things.

The Power of Forgiveness

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Scriptures

Matthew 6:14-15
Matthew 18:21-22
Luke 17:3-4
Ephesians 4:31-32

Resources

The Gift of Forgiveness by Charles Stanley – Charles Stanley, one of the most influential spiritual leaders of our day, shares the key to personal and even world peace in The Gift of Forgiveness. as Stanley points out that no sin is so shockingly evil it blocks God’s forgiveness nor so trivial it negates the need for God’s mercy, he shares the specifics of how to go about receiving and giving forgiveness.

The Gift of Forgiveness reflects the heart of Stanley’s teaching ministry. In this markedly helpful book, Stanley addresses such questions as how to practice a life of forgiveness in all your relationships and how to make forgiveness an ongoing, practical experience in your life.

The Truth About Forgiveness by John MacArthur – “The greatest measuring rod of love in the life of a Christian may be forgiveness, because God showed His love to us in terms of forgiveness.” ?John MacArthur

Does anyone really want to forgive? Or admit that we need forgiveness? Whether we’re giving or receiving, forgiveness is hard. It seems unfair. It feels unnatural. And as best-selling author and pastor John MacArthur demonstrates, forgiveness apart from Christ is unnatural. It is only as we understand our need, Christ’s power and example, and what it reallly means to love that we can embrace two of the most liberating acts of love: forgiving and being forgiven.